Ed Miliband will be a liability as energy secretary

I know it has only just begun, but it is not too early to start wondering: what will it be that causes the Starmer government its first serious problem? A likely surge in arrivals of illegal migrants seems one possibility, given that some of those encamped in northern France appear to be well aware of British politics and have been reported to be waiting for the moment when Starmer fulfils his policy of ending the Rwanda scheme ‘on day one’.

But the confirmation of Ed Miliband as Energy and Climate Secretary raises another source of trouble: Labour’s hugely ambitious plan to decarbonise the national grid by 2030.

It should be noted that there has already been some shifting on this target. Labour policy as published on the party’s website as recently as May suggested that a Starmer government was aiming to create a grid almost entirely based on wind and solar energy.